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by the resistance
Summary: tbw


**_The Resistance_**

**By Cat & Jaine**

**_Disclaimer:_**_ We own no part of Harry Potter, and are not affiliated in any_

_ way, shape, or form to J.K. Rowling. This is all for fun. Get it? Now get._

**_February 19, 2003_****__**

The War had been raging on for nearly six years now. There was hardly anything left. 

Terry Boot was bone tired and weary to the soul of fighting. The Ministry had issued an order for any eligible witch and wizard to fill out the ranks of Aurors when he'd been nineteen. He had been fighting against the Dark Side ever since. That was nearly five years ago. 

He had seen countless comrades fall over the years. Scores of them. Faceless names. Historied heroes. Hailed the best of the best. So few of them had survived the second onslaught. And when the esteemed Harry Potter had fallen into the amassed dead, hope had fallen with him. 

_"Only one can survive."_

Well, the wrong fucking one did.

Ministry Headquarters in Central London had been obliterated in the third year of the War. Hundreds of workers and Ministry officials had been burned alive or blown to pieces in the attack. There was no warning. Nothing. And within a matter of an hour or so, there was nothing left. 

The Ministry had relocated to a desolate and anonymous location in the streets of London, and that was where Boot was headed now. To report the latest disaster. Another fallen friend. 

He wondered how long it would be before the end. If there was ever an end. If he would be alive to see that glorious day. He'd grown bitter and realistic, hard pills to swallow, but necessary for survival. He did what he was told. They pointed and fired and off he went. Did it matter who he ferreted out or killed looked exactly like him on the other side of the mask? Of course not. His job wasn't to worry about it. His job was to follow order.

Death no longer scared him. He had grown accustomed to the horrors of war, much like everyone else.

Boot Apparated at the end of the dark street and pulled the hood of his sweater over his head. He blended in with the bleak surroundings, melting into the shadows, making sure no one was following him. He made his way to the apartment lot in the middle of the depressing street and started counting bricks. 

He tapped the sixth one from the right and twentieth from the bottom with his battered wand and a pair of eyes appeared in the brick wall. A chilling sight to one not used to it. 

"Entry Code." There was a low hiss. 

"102-94-66-379," he muttered quietly.

The eyes disappeared, there was the sound of a shift portal sliding open, Boot checked the street again, and walked through the wall. 

The Gate Keeper checked Boot over and he ascended the flight of stairs to the Aurors' HQ. Something once so esteemed and glorious, was now battered and broken like everything else. The pictures and awards that Fudge had demanded be hung on the walls only served to annoy Boot. What were they for? To remind them of the glory days? 

Fudge was a delirious old man, trying to hang onto the scraps of his long devoured dignity. He was the leader of an abandoned world. 

Boot went through the precautions of entering HQ before entering Kingsley Shacklebolt's office. Shacklebolt was the eighth Auror rewarded the position of leading the department. The seven who had fallen were all exceptional, but that didn't seem to make a difference anymore. Still, pictures of Moody, Tonks, and other assorted faces were spelled onto the walls. 

The taupe plaster was the only physical honour the fallen received. The rest lived in memories, but the pictures that littered the walls were ghostly. So many happy, smiling faces and families. Now long dead and gone.

"Terry," Shacklebolt stood up when Boot entered the room.

"I'm sure you've heard it by now. The Durham site has been cauterized, but we lost Cauldwell on the way out. I sent his body to Mungo's already," Boot said tersely. 

"There's something more pressing at the moment," Shacklebolt said grimly. 

Boot hardly flinched. He had liked Owen Cauldwell. The man had had a good heart, but seeing another death being dismissed like that was regulation these days. No time to weep for the dead. Dead is dead is dead. 

"Another place I need to torch?" Boot asked mildly.

"No. I've just received news," Shacklebolt said with a seriousness Boot wasn't used to seeing. The concern and glisten of tears in the old man's face was not part of his persona.

"What?" Boot asked, bracing himself for the worst.

"The lean-to hospital in Pimlico was attacked today," Shacklebolt said with a telling hitch in his voice.

Boot stood, unmoving, waiting. Another blow. How the Death Eaters knew their every move, he'd never know. So many laughing faces chased his footsteps down the hall. There were already so many faces.

"Anna was there," Shacklebolt blurted.

_Anna. Anna Boot. As in Annie? Little Annie? His sister?_

The impact of Shacklebolt's words took a second to register.

"What're you saying?" Boot snapped.

"I'm sorry, Terry. She didn't make it."

And just like that. The world fell apart. Again. 

**_February 20, 2003_****__**

Sixteen. _Fucking sixteen.___

She never stood a chance. 

Boot had forbade his younger sister, Annie, to become an Auror. The War had broken out just as she'd been accepted into Hogwarts. She didn't even have the most basic training in proper wand usage and magic. She'd been too young.

Annie had raged for days, but in the end reverted to volunteering at the hospitals as the battles grew more and more frequent and the men and women who returned grew less and less in number. 

An old friend of his, the late Belinda Dunstan, had taken his younger sister under her wing and taught her the basics of Healing. Annie had spent everyday there ever since. 

_"I want to help."_

And he had relented, something he sorely regretted now. A hospital had a million fucking wards, he had thought, there was no way the Death Eaters could take down St. Mungo's. He had long since learned not to underestimate the enemy.

Mungo's had been attacked four times in the past six years. Though the Death Eaters had never taken the hospital, it was so beat-up and grimy that it hardly resembled what it used to be. The walls were patched together with weak spells, random floors had been wiped out, and half the staff had been casualties at one point or another. But despite all of that, reluctant as he'd been, he had allowed Annie to continue assistant nursing. 

Then she had branched out to Healing for the Aurors. She had been damn good at what she did. She picked up the tricks fast, she had talent, quick hands, and a shining personality. She had carried happiness with her. Always.

So she had begun visiting temporary hospital wards to heal wounded Aurors.

And yesterday. she had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Boot heard the bottle smash against the floor as he dropped it. 

So many faces. The voices. 

They were mixed in with the screams now, and the sobbing. The wailing and sound of plaster exploding, bodies being torn apart, dead weight hitting the pavement after an Unforgivable was cast. 

He did what he hadn't been able to do since the War had begun.

He cried. 


End file.
